Even before all the beds in the other dorms had been built, the family unit at the Homeless Assistance Center sat ready - fresh linens and toys on each bunk.
But six weeks after the Fort Lauderdale center opened its doors, the family unit has yet to accept its first residents.
Center officials are instead grappling for a way to physically separate the children's dorm from that of the single men and women.
Currently the adult dorms and family centers share a second-floor catwalk, with no physical barrier to keep adults from entering the family area. The center has 24-hour security with video cameras posted around the floors.
Still, that's not good enough for some, including Bill Keith, chairman of the Broward Partnership for the Homeless, the group that oversees the center.
Center officials are looking for a way to keep out those who don't reside in the family area that would not pose a fire hazard. Original plans called for a locked door between the two areas, but they did not comply with fire safety concerns, keith said.
The family unit will not open until the center finds a way to separate the two populations, Keith said, adding that could be within the month.
"We need to err on the side of caution," he said. "It's a top priority for us right now."
The center focused first on housing the Tent City residents, all adults, in the center and then moving on to families.
Now, county and center officials are negotiating what sort of barrier should be installed.
"There's some rethinking of the concept of having a family shelter in the same building as the single men and women," said Steve Werthman, the county's Homeless Initiative Partnership administrator.
"It's the potential risk factor," Werthman said. "It just takes one incident."
One solution might be to have a separate entrance and exit for the families with an alarm gate installed on the second floor between the single men's dorms and the unit.
In general, homeless shelters tend to have buildings demarcated for men, women or families. The Homeless Assistance Center was modeled on a similar facility in Miami that serves all populations on one site.
Miami-Dade, however, may have more families in need of assistance, some homeless advocates suggest. In Broward the more recent analysis found about 545 homeless families, with an average of 4.6 members in each family, Werthman said.
Homeless men appear to be the bulk of the population. Already the center has reconfigured its male ratio, devoting about 130 beds to men and 30 to women.
Some homeless say that placing families with single adults is just not a good idea.
"I don't really believe that families should be at the HAC," said Fred Scarborough, lay pastor of the Shepherd's Way, which offers an average 75 family members a place to sleep each night. "The real problem with homeless women and children is self-esteem and trying to build up feeling good about themselves."
The way to do that, said Scarborough, is to give the families sleeping quarters resembling normal homes. Shepherd's Way has 12 apartments outfitted with kitchens.
Mixing populations was the original vision of the Broward partnership, which views the homeless center as the first step in the journet toward employment and permanent housing.
"Having families in a facility like this also creates a stabilizing influence, it creates much more of a home atmosphere."